Wicked Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 3) Page 7

  “Hey, buddy,” Clark murmured as he stepped up behind the fortuneteller. “You got a match for a smoke?”

  “No,” the man grumbled. “Don’t got nothing.”

  Clark glanced at the chalkboard over the clerk’s window in the station, then checked his pocket watch. They had a good ten minutes before the train was due to arrive, and those steamy things always ran a good bit late.

  “Here’s the thing…” Clark grabbed the fortuneteller’s collar and whipped him around, shoving him into the pole so hard his head thumped the wood.

  “Hey!” The man’s hat slipped to the ground, and his eyes widened. “Mister… Mr. Grisham.”

  “Yeah, that’s me.” Clark grinned. It could be like the good old days—good, ha—when he fought gunslinger duels in the streets. If the man had a gun on him, they could pace off. Clark hadn’t missed yet. The trick was to keep your hand steady, your head and body calm.

  A few people whispered, but no one stepped forward. Good.

  The fortuneteller gulped. “I did all I could.”

  “We got our little girl back, so I’m happy.” Clark kept his fist against the man’s throat, but he shrugged. “I’m fine with your running off, but it’s made my wife awfully upset. She seems to think you can help us more. Can you?”

  The fortuneteller gulped again, shaking his head. “I can’t give out answers that don’t come to me. It isn’t easy, and not everyone asks the right questions. I don’t even know what the right questions are!”

  “But this Clara Larkin does?” Clark pulled the letter from his coat pocket and shook it.

  The man licked his lips. “Look, I can’t tell you. I don’t want anyone saying I blabbed.”

  “Now who would say that?”

  A station worker started toward them, but paused and returned inside, as if not feeling it was worth a battle. Most people didn’t take too kindly to fortunetellers, but from what Clark understood, they still advertised themselves for the select few willing to shell out coins for a few positive words. Hookers for the mind.

  The fortuneteller slumped as if surrendering. “The government. You must know what that’s like, Clark Treasure.”

  “Sure I do, and I know why they wanted me, but why do they want you?” The government could be real pains in the gears, but they never hunted anyone for the sport of it.

  “I can’t tell you,” he snapped. “They’ll know. There are others like me who see true and they would know. The government wants me for that. Clara Larkin knows everything.”

  Clark scowled and shoved the man back as he stepped away. The government would want someone who could speak the “truth,” but Clark only half believed in the man. The part that did believe whispered about the serum in his veins that allowed him to see the two ghosts floating above the train tracks. Either they committed suicide in front of the rushing hunk of steaming metal or someone had murdered them that way.

  “They’ve been after me for years,” the fortuneteller whispered. “I ran away from the orphanage when I was a kid. They killed Clara Larkin to get to me.”

  Just like how they’d killed Clark’s mother to get to him.

  The fortuneteller couldn’t help them with the prince or Jolene. He was just a man on the run, as Clark had been. He’d performed a good deed, but he had to save himself.

  “Go.” Clark pulled a leather coin purse from his other pocket and slapped it onto the man’s chest. “If I need you, I’ll find you. The government isn’t the only one with spies.” The gangs and Bromi offered eyes and ears across the west, if Clark only knew the right person to ask.

  “Spies.” The fortuneteller closed his eyes again.

  “I’ll tell you later.” Clark met his wife’s gaze as he shut the door to their inn bedroom. Amethyst sat on the bed beside Alyssa, Jolene curled between them, and Jeremiah glared out the window. Clark’s conversation with the fortuneteller wasn’t for Alyssa or Jeremiah. They wouldn’t understand.

  “All right.” Her face had the flush of someone who’d been crying.

  He knelt in front of her to cup her head between his hands and kiss her lips, light, a reminder of his love. Jeremiah coughed.

  “Zachariah and your manservant are bringing us food,” Alyssa said.

  Clark stood and hooked his thumbs through the belt loops of his denim slacks. “Our next step is to confront the prince.” Kill him. Yeah, that would be great. Impossible, but great.

  “What are you going to do that for?” Jeremiah exploded. “He’ll deny having any part in this. We need to get the army—”

  “No army,” Clark interrupted. The talk with the fortuneteller proved they would never change. They took what they wanted; they didn’t care about old Clark Grisham and his socialite wife.

  “Bugger it all, man, think about this. You’re going to walk up to the prince and demand answers? You’re going to cry and whimper over a kidnapping scheme without proof?”

  Clark smirked; Jeremiah almost sounded like his sister.

  “It’s not funny,” Jeremiah roared.

  “Hush, my love.” Alyssa reached for his hand and squeezed his fingers before returning her gaze to Clark. “You said John Horan spoke ill of the prince in the eyes of the government. Perhaps the army would be on your side in going against him.”

  “We would need proof,” Clark said. “The words of a dead man and a friendly letter don’t mean much.”

  Amethyst giggled. “By the way, how long do you think before the sheriff comes after you, sweet brother, over the circus death?”

  Jeremiah paled. They hadn’t left any witnesses, and they’d returned to town without speaking to anyone. For all they knew, the bodies hadn’t been discovered yet.

  “Be nice,” Clark muttered.

  “I am only warning him.” She blinked, her lips still curled into a smile.

  “We’ll go to the prince and then we’ll decide,” Clark said. “We find the proof or we do our own justice.”

  “You can’t kill him or they’ll hang you,” Jeremiah sputtered.

  “Western justice, Jere.” The man might have lived in Hedlund for most of his life, but he still didn’t know the main thing about the frontier. You fought for what you wanted and nobody could stop you.

  “We’ll take Jolene with us.” Amethyst lifted the baby into her arms. “She’s safest with us. I doubt Prince Dexter even knows what she looks like.”

  Bringing their daughter into danger… he stroked Jolene’s soft cheek. He couldn’t bear to let her away from him now.

  Alyssa rose and smoothed her skirt. “I will send a telegram to the Treasures and Grishams so they know Jolene is safe. You let all your testosterone out while I’m gone so that by the time I return, you can tell me our plan.”

  ric rubbed his thumb over the front case of his pocket watch. He’d forgotten how much he relied on that nervous habit before he’d died. Garth had always joked with him that it was his tell.

  “Never play poker, Eric. You’ll rub your pocket watch and spoil the game.”

  He’d forgotten how good it felt to talk to Garth. The man never stopped grinning. He took the world on that way, with faith and loyalty and happiness. Good on Hedlund for making him senator.

  Eric tucked his watch back into his jacket and tipped his bowler hat to the men standing around the entrance to the factory. One man held out blueprints while the other two pointed at various locations. A fourth worker scribbled onto a clipboard.

  It would be the greatest factory that side of the country. Eric sighed, closing his eyes against the prairie wind. A mile from the nearest town provided privacy, to a degree, and he would have housing built for the employees who requested that. He’d dreamt of a hulking brick factory back when he’d left the east with Garth Treasure. The area building up around it would become its own town; he would invent machines to save lives and cushion harsh Western life. His creations would be marveled at across the world.

  Like the clockwork circus. Eric passed the workers to approach the front e
ntrance, forcing himself not to scowl. They had been twisted into something cruel that had harmed his son by kidnapping his granddaughter. Eric’s inventions were meant to make his family giddy and proud, not haunted.

  “Mr. Grisham?”

  Eric turned to face his manager, who approached from the back of the factory’s interior. Metal rods crisscrossed the walls and ceilings where boards had yet to be placed. The fresh smell of sawdust lingered in the air.

  The manager tapped his lead pencil against an open notebook, his moustache twitching above his thin lips. “Mr. Grisham, we have a problem.”

  What beautiful words. Eric had always reveled in such statements; they offered possibilities for brainstorming.

  “Hit me with it, man.” Eric grinned.

  “The water is toxic.”

  The grin turned into a gasp. Yes, he could find solutions for that, but it proved far worse than unstable supports. “How so? What water?”

  “There are tributaries that branch off from the main river.”

  “Yes, I know all that.”

  “We’re far enough away from civilization to tap into one of them. Others are doing it, especially farmers. They’re using irrigation to help hydrate their fields.”

  “Yes, get on with it,” Eric almost spat out. The words emerged clipped.

  “That water is toxic.”

  Eric blinked. “You’re saying the water from the country’s main river is toxic.”

  “Yes.” Now the manager blinked as if Eric were the dense one.

  “How do you know?”

  The manager sighed. “I had it tested. As you requested, everything is tested for safety and accuracy. I assumed the water should also be regulated. We are using those tributaries to help power our wheels. This liquid contains the Boleyn chemical.”

  Eric rubbed the cover on his pocket watch to calm his thoughts. “The Boleyn chemical.” Brass glass, as his son would cuss. The Boleyn chemical was bad, to say the least.

  “The Boleyn chemical was invented by Michael Boleyn for the last king to—”

  “Yes, I know what the toxin is. Poison. It replicates in water. The king wanted to use it in global warfare.” Eric removed the watch so he could look at the time. Not yet nine in the morning and he was faced with death. Marvelous start to the day.

  “I also had our one well tested and that came back pure. I will have more wells dug, but you will want to report this to the government.”

  Eric might have still looked the age he was when he died, but that didn’t make him a youth. “Yes. Immediately.” He could have snorted.

  It wouldn’t interrupt the building of his factory, but the toxin would disrupt the country.

  “You murderer,” the ghost of John Horan shouted at Clark. “The prime of my life. I had so much good to do in the world. Here I am—squelched!”

  Clark stared out the train window at the passing prairie. The ghost needed to shut up. If Clark could, he would have killed him anew, or at least shoved his head into the lumpy seat.

  Amethyst groaned and leaned her head against Clark’s shoulder. “Can’t he be quiet? I’m getting a migraine.” She stuck her tongue out at John Horan, who seemed to puff up like a strutting peacock.

  “What’s he saying?” Zachariah asked from the bench across from them.

  “Tell him all my words,” the ghost ranted. “Tell him what a murderer you are. Let him see you for what you are. A villain.”

  “Nonsense mostly.” Clark shrugged and looped his arm around his wife. “Nothing of any worth.”

  “Worth? Of course I’m worthy!”

  “Don’t be a ninny.” Amethyst stuck her tongue out again.

  Clark rubbed his hand across the top of Jolene’s head where she slumbered in her mother’s arms. Zachariah had held her for a brief moment so she could tug on his goatee. The boy probably thought it looked appealing, whereas it made his face appear too gaunt. Clark chuckled; he sounded like Amethyst.

  “Can’t you go pester Jeremiah?” Amethyst asked the ghost. “He’s in the next compartment forward. He’d love to see you again.”

  “That man can’t hear me,” John Horan sputtered.

  Clark wondered if they should let on Jeremiah was the murderer, not Clark, but John Horan had feasted into him as soon as they boarded the train. The ghost must have been wandering until he’d found them. Clark sighed.

  If he’d had a private car with Amethyst the way Jeremiah and Alyssa shared one, he would have had his hand up her skirt. Knowing his brother-in-law, Jeremiah was probably rigid against the seat, complaining about something, and Alyssa was trying to calm him.

  Clark tipped Amethyst’s face toward him and kissed her lips. “My darling, I’m going to take a walk. This is starting to feel a bit cramped.”

  “It’s that unwanted guest, isn’t it?” She stuck out her lower lip.

  “Rest,” he murmured in her ear. “I’m sure John will follow me.”

  The ghost held out his arms as though to block Clark’s progress into the hallway. “You’re so stupid, Treasure. You think the prince has all your answers? Ha! You’ll never find the right ones.”

  “I see you dressed me again.” Samantha held out her arms to show the burgundy dress the nurse had stuffed her into.

  Captain MacFarland drummed his fingertips against his knee. Samantha smiled at him and twirled. Her ankles wobbled in her new shoes and she grabbed the back of the couch for support.

  “Am I a pretty lady?” she sneered. “You know, the nurse I had today was talking about your conquests. She seems to really enjoy your company when you’re in town.” Samantha hadn’t understood half of what was mentioned, but the implications had sent her blushing.

  Captain MacFarland’s face matched the flush. Good.

  She dropped next to him on the couch and held out her hands. He groaned deep in his throat before gripping her fingers.

  “What does the government need to know?”

  How she loathed that question. The pain exploded from her heart as though the power meant to shred her. She gasped and jerked, wishing her heart would burst and save her from future torment.

  “There is someone like me who is helping Clark.”

  Zachariah shut the door to the train compartment, sealing Amethyst and Jolene into their thoughts. The wheels clacked over the tracks, a quiet lull in the stillness. She shifted to adjust her brocade corset. A few more hours and the steam train would reach the town closest to the prince’s southern plantation. She’d never been to the south before, but she’d heard enough stories. Rigorous rules and high-end decorum. He used to josh with her friends that the southern territories would kick her out for being too brash.

  Amethyst set Jolene beside her on the bench and reached beneath for her black leather valise. She snapped open the brass hooks to remove the letter from the fortuneteller.

  Clara Larkin.

  Amethyst glanced around the compartment, with plain gray walls and maroon cushions. The off-white curtains of the window had been stained along the hems.

  “Clara Larkin,” Amethyst called. “Are you here?”

  The train continued to whir over the tracks.

  “Clara Larkin, I was asked to reach out to you.”

  Jolene murmured in her sleep. Amethyst plucked at her skirt. She couldn’t go into the realm of the dead without a purpose, and she didn’t know where Clara Larkin had died. Sometimes ghosts stayed around their resting spot.

  “Clara Larkin, I’m here, I’m waiting, wherever you are.”

  he south had a distinctive wetness. While the west contained heat, it was a dry heat, and in the south everything felt wet. Sweat beaded beneath Amethyst’s arms and along her hairline. Her silk bloomers had soaked through, sticking to her thighs.

  “Why is it so bloody humid here?” She snapped her sandalwood fan open, but even that breeze offered little respite. “I never thought I’d want that desert wind.”

  Clark glared out past the train station to a field of corn. Ugly green
stalks. Jeremiah stood beside him glaring at a map as if he didn’t know how to read it, and Alyssa bounced Jolene in her arms. Fine, if the boys wanted to glare, then Amethyst would, too.

  “My turn.” Alyssa held out Jolene.

  “Glaring contest?” Amethyst almost grinned before she remembered she had to keep her eyebrows knit.

  Alyssa blinked. “I need to change. Zachariah is still in there, isn’t he?”

  Right, they were taking turns freshening at the train station restrooms. Amethyst took Jolene, and the baby curled her hand around the wide white ribbon hanging off her mother’s bonnet. Alyssa lifted her leather valise to step back into the marble palace of the station. Amethyst did have to hand it to the southerners—their world had pristine magic in it. Where the west appeared thrown together by a toddler, the south held elegance. People strolled along the wooden sidewalks in top hats, suits, and gowns. Only steam vehicles, no horses.

  A couple nodded to them, and Clark touched the brim of his hat. In the west, he and Jeremiah looked snazzy in their black suits, but Amethyst should have dressed them. They needed silk cravats and brocade waistcoats to fit in. She glanced down at her blue dress. By far, it wasn’t the worst, and it went over a white blouse with silk sleeves. She’d pinned a cameo to the high collar.

  “Remember,” Clark murmured, “we are the Mitchells. We’ve come to buy land down south.”

  “Joint plantation,” Jeremiah grumbled.

  Amethyst switched her daughter to one arm so she could smooth Clark’s lapel. Perspiration glossed his face. They would have to find a way to cool down or they would look like heathens.

  Clark handed the bill to the driver of the hired coach. “To the Blooming Flower Plantation, and thank you.”

  The driver lifted his copper eyebrows before he slid the bill into his vest pocket. “You sure you want that plantation, sir? Not too many visitors that way.”

  “I’m certain.” Clark had done his research. Blooming Flower had been named after the late king, who had loved nothing more than to spend the day with plants.

  “They don’t get many visitors,” the driver repeated. “A bit closed off to them.”